Selling Your House Without An Estate Agent
June 16th, 2009 3 Comments » | POSTED BY ROB
In the past week I’ve noticed a couple of houses locally with homemade for sale boards outside, which got me wondering whether more people are deciding to sell their houses without employing the services of an estate agent?
On the face of it, it could make sense, after all, you could save the 1.5% you might end up paying them (this does vary from agent to agent), which on a £150,000 house, is the not insubstantial sum of £2,250 – money which could very useful to put towards the mortgage on the new property, or for renovations to your new home.
But of course, despite their reputation, estate agents do still have a role to play in the home buying/selling process – they should be able to get your property listed in local newspapers and on all of the popular property websites (although some may charge extra for some of these services), without you lifting a finger. Of course, you could do this yourself, but it would cost you time and money, which you need to factor in if you’re to sell your home yourself.
Estate agents should also be there to do all of the chasing-up and hurrying-along of all of the parties involved, and to keep you updated of where things stand in the process. For example, this could mean staying in regular contact with the people in your chain, talking to solicitors, and dealing with surveyors etc., which could be a massive task for you to undertake, especially if you’re also doing your own full time job.
I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who has sold their home without the help of an estate agent. What was your experience? Was it difficult? How much money did you save. Please let us know in the comments below.
It would also be interesting to hear from estate agents themselves – what can you offer to home sellers that they couldn’t achieve themselves?
3 Comments on “Selling Your House Without An Estate Agent”
Mark Harrison, June 25th, 2009
Rob
You have to ask the question in this day and age as to ‘why would you sell your house via an estate agent?’. There are plenty of DIY sites on the internet and let’s face it, if you are looking for a house, don’t you look in the area first and then see who is selling? If you do then it can be absolutely any agent selling it, internet or high street, it doesn’t matter.
Saw this a lot when I lived in America: sellers with DIY signs on their front lawns.
I do find it difficult to see how estate agents can justify all that commission, so it will be interesting to see if it takes off.
Guess the key to it is getting the property up on rightmove.co.uk! Not sure if private sellers can do that.
home loans, January 20th, 2010
Estate fees are so unjustified. They are so expensive for what they actually do.
